Production flow-rate measurement options for food process lines

ABSTRACT

A transfer conveyor for food process lines has an endless conveyor belt characterized by an upper, food-product carrying run and a lower, return run. The upper, food-product carrying run defines a transit plane. The upper, food-product carrying run also extends between an intake end and a discharge end. The upper, food-product carrying run furthermore has a first pleat below the transit plane proximate the intake end and a second spaced-away pleat below the transit plane proximate the discharge end. These spaced-away pleats partitioning the upper, food-product carrying run into an intake-end span and a discharge-end span cooperatively flanking a mid-span. Wherein the transfer conveyor additionally includes one scale servicing the intake-end span of the upper, food-product carrying run and another scale servicing the discharge-end span.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO PROVISIONAL APPLICATION(S)

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/866,121, filed Jun. 25, 2019.

This application is also a continuation-in-part of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/940,003, filed Mar. 29, 2018; which claims thebenefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/478,822, filed Mar. 30,2017; U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/545,634, filed Aug. 15, 2017;U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/560,392, filed Sep. 19, 2017; U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/577,375, filed Oct. 26, 2017; and U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/648,613, filed Mar. 27, 2018.

The foregoing patent disclosure(s) is(are) incorporated herein by thisreference thereto.

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention generally relates to mechanized food-process lineequipment for industrial food process plants and, more particularly, toproduction flow-rate measurement options for industrial food processplants.

It is an object of the invention to provide to production flow-ratemeasurement options for industrial food process plants other than doingso manually.

For example, a production instruction may come down to some responsibleparty, who will be generically referred to here as the supervisoryattendant (eg., superintendent). In some small plants, this couldactually be the owner.

A representative example of food process line machines (stations)configured in a non-limiting example of a working food process linemight comprise the following sequence (note that the last four machinesadd coatings and/or weight to the raw chicken tenders):

-   -   a food-product (raw chicken tenders) load station (see, eg.,        FIG. 12);    -   a food-product spreading station (see, eg., FIG. 12);    -   a pre-dust coating machine (now see, eg., FIG. 8);    -   a batter station (see, eg., FIG. 8);    -   a bread-coating machine (see, eg., FIG. 8);    -   a fryer (see, eg., FIG. 8);        and so on. The fryer might be set/limited to fry (par-fry) for a        20-30 second dwell time, which ‘sets’ the coatings for finished        cooking later and elsewhere.

Assume the production instruction is to produce 100,000 ‘finished’pounds of chicken tenders over two consecutive 8-hour shifts (eg., startat 6:00 a.m. and run through the evening). The instruction furtherstates that the percent of pick-up of the various coatings is to be 30%.Hence the superintendent will need to have transferred out ofrefrigerated storage a total of 70,000 pounds of raw chicken tenders(see FIG. 10), but over time and not all at once.

The production instruction is likely to be a lot more specific about thecoatings pick-up. For example, the production instruction might specify:

-   -   3% pick-up of pre-dust;    -   10% pick-up of batter;    -   12% pick-up of final breading; and    -   5% pick-up of oil.

The fryer represents two distinct things that distinguish if from theother operations. First, the fryer is usually the bottleneck for theproduction run. The throughput rate through the fryer sets the flowratevalue for the rest of the food process line. Second, the fryer doesn'talways add weight. The fryer drives off moisture content and replacesthat with oil content. There might be a net-zero gain in weight pick-up,or else some net gain like up to about 10%.

Regardless, the foregoing represents an example production instruction.

A basic manner in which the superintendent monitors (or has monitored)whether the pick-up values are within specification is to do somanually. That is, a timed sample of flowing food product is removedfrom the food process line and weighed. Samples are obtained preferablybefore and after each coating machine. The samples are weighed onscales. The weight difference the before and after samples allowscalculation of pick-up percent. Each coating machine (each coatingprocess) affords various techniques for adjusting the percent up or down(several of the these techniques will be mentioned below). It might takeabout ten minutes to complete a round of manually sampling, weighing andadjusting. But for at least one snapshot in time, the set values shouldfairly well agree with the specified values in the productioninstruction.

However, the shortcomings as distinct from the challenges are numerous,and both the shortcomings and challenges jeopardize the chances of asuccessful run. The risks of an unsuccessful run is that the whole batchwill be downgraded, and bring a lower price (perhaps a much lower price)than if the whole batch were deemed to have met the specification. Sothat's a loss of potential yield, a loss of potential profitability. Itmight even represent a plain stark net loss.

So again, it might take about ten minutes to complete a round ofmanually sampling, weighing and adjusting: which provides for, in atleast one snapshot in time, an idea of the set values. The machines maygo out of specification as soon as the attendants walk away. Theattendants might only take measurements once an hour to once a shift.Hence the food process line could run outside of specification for along time before anybody knew any different.

The superintendent is challenged right from the start to know theinitial flowrate. FIG. 10 shows that the food processing plant is likelyto have an on-site refrigerated storage capable of storing the 70,000pounds of raw chicken tenders until called for. The raw chicken tendersare stored in these bulk open-topped cubic vats measuring 4 foot on aside with about 4,000-4,500 pounds capacity. The vats are typicallyweighed and the weight thereof is labeled on each vat.

However, the weight of chicken tenders is not the labeled weight minusthe tare of the vat. The chicken tenders in the vat are originallycovered in ice, which melts over time. Hence as FIG. 11 shows, the vatsare a slurry of chicken tenders, ice and meltwater. A vat labeled at4,000 pounds might only actually contain just 3,200 pounds of chickentenders.

Workers will typically shovel off the ice, but keep the meltwater. Thevats will be emptied into perhaps a first holding tank (the vats aretypically plastic, but the holding tanks are typically stainless steel).The chicken tender slurry might then be moved to (pumped into) amarinade tumbler, the goal being to drive in as much marinade aspossible. The marinade can be liquid but is more likely to be powder, soretention of the meltwater is useful. And the marinaded product ispumped into perhaps one or more further downstream holding tanks until alast one functions as a hopper.

The manual way of determining initial start flowrate of raw chickentenders is to monitor the drop in the hopper. If the level drops sixinches in a ½ hour, this might roughly correspond to 1,000 pounds. Sothat value corresponds to 2,000 pounds of raw tenders input per hour, orperhaps 32,000 pounds over 2 shifts. The superintendent should order fora second food process line to be run in tandem with this first one, andthe values project that the two lines together still will not achievethe target of 100,000 finished pounds of product with 30% pick-up, perthe production instruction.

Given the foregoing, it is an object of the invention to provideimprovements and/or options to overcome some of the shortcoming andchallenges of the prior art that were briefly sketched above.

A number of additional features and objects will be apparent inconnection with the following discussion of preferred embodiments andexamples.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

There are shown in the drawings certain exemplary embodiments of theinvention as presently preferred. It should be understood that theinvention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed as examples, andis capable of variation within the scope of the skills of a personhaving ordinary skill in the art to which the invention pertains. In thedrawings,

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of mechanized food-process line equipmentarranged in such a working food process line and furnished withproduction flow-rate measurement options in accordance with theinvention;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged scale perspective view of detail II-II in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged scale perspective view of not only detail III-IIIin FIG. 1 but also detail III-III in FIG. 2 showing a first embodimentof a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance with the inventionprovisioned with scales at each nose end;

FIG. 4 is a side elevational view of FIG. 3, again showing the firstembodiment of a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance with theinvention, and as provisioned with scales at each nose end;

FIG. 5 is a side elevational view comparable to FIG. 4 except showing analternate embodiment of a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance withthe invention;

FIG. 6 is top plan block diagram view of a given food process line inaccordance with the invention and showing a weighing transfer conveyoras exemplified by FIG. 3 indicated in the diagram as a block identifiedas “PRODUCT WEIGHT;”

FIG. 7 is a top plan block diagram view comparable to FIG. 6 exceptshowing a different assemblage of machines composing this FIG. 7 foodprocess line;

FIG. 8 is a top plan block diagram view comparable to FIGS. 6 and 7except showing still another different assemblage of machines composingthis FIG. 8 food process line;

FIG. 9 is a top plan block diagram view comparable to FIGS. 6-8 exceptshowing yet another different assemblage of machines composing this FIG.9 food process line;

FIG. 10 is an elevational representation of a refrigerated storagelocker in accordance with the prior art, situated inside a foodprocessing factory (not shown) also in which resides a food process linein accordance with the invention, including any of the four non-limitingexamples shown by FIGS. 6-9;

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing an exemplary series of processes andoperations that move batch-stored food product in the mass storagecontainers shown in FIG. 10 onto a loading zone of a food process linein accordance with the invention, including any of the four non-limitingexamples shown by FIGS. 6-9;

FIG. 12 is a perspective view functionally representing detailXII/XIII-XII/XIII in FIG. 11, showing one version of operations where afood product loader in accordance with the prior art is loading foodproduct (which food product is not in view) onto a landing conveyor inaccordance the prior art, which landing conveyor affords implementationof some form of product spreading technology whether it be manual orotherwise, and which landing conveyor discharges to a weighing transferconveyor in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 13 is a side elevational view comparable to FIG. 4 and providing analternate functional representation of detail XII/XIII-XII/XIII in FIG.11, showing another version of operations where the loading of raw foodproduct is directly onto a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance withthe invention, it likewise having a mid-span which affordsimplementation of some form of product spreading technology whether itbe manual or otherwise;

FIG. 14 is a schematic side elevation view of a further embodiment of aweighing transfer conveyor in accordance with the invention, shown in anexpanded position;

FIG. 15 is a schematic side elevation view comparable to FIG. 14 exceptshowing the further embodiment of a weighing transfer conveyor inaccordance with the invention in a contracted position;

FIG. 16 is a perspective view of this further embodiment of a weighingtransfer conveyor in accordance with the invention, showing that itfurther allows pivoting about a vertical axis in addition to beingreversibly expanding-contracting;

FIG. 17 is a top plan view, partly in section, taken in the direction ofarrows XVII-XVII in FIG. 16; and

FIG. 18 is a perspective view comparable to FIG. 16 except showing thetransfer conveyor in accordance with the invention situated between twomachines which do not pivot and showing the transfer conveyor inaccordance with the invention pivoted obliquely away from the main axisof the food process line.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

FIGS. 1 through 4 show a first embodiment of mechanized food-processline equipment arranged in a working food process line and furnishedwith production flow-rate measurement options in accordance with theinvention. FIG. 5 is comparable to FIG. 4 except showing an alternateembodiment of a production flow-rate measurement option in accordancewith the invention.

To turn to FIG. 1, it shows a series of food process line machinesconfigured in a non-limiting example of a working food process line.

In series, from right to left, the machines comprise:

-   -   a food-product load station;    -   a food-product spreading station;    -   a weighing transfer conveyor;    -   a pre-dust coating machine;    -   a weighing transfer conveyor;    -   a batter station;    -   a weighing transfer conveyor;    -   a seasoning-applying coating machine;    -   a weighing transfer conveyor;    -   a Panko-crumb coating machine;    -   a weighing transfer conveyor;    -   a fryer;        and so on. The fryer might be set/limited to fry for a 20-30        second dwell time, which corresponds to a par-fry.

FIGS. 6-9 provide several non-limiting examples of food process lineconfigurations in accordance with the invention and show a like theseries of stations/machines as outlined above.

It is an object of the invention to provide the supervisory attendant(superintendent) of weight-flow (˜mass-flow) of product across anyweighing transfer conveyor in accordance with the invention forreal-time feedback of weight-flow values.

FIG. 4 shows a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance with theinvention. The weighing transfer conveyor has scales at both the intakeend (eg., to the right in the view) and outflow end (to the left in theview). For example, the intake scale might indicate that past one oranother coating machine, there was a 5% pick-up of coating material.However, the outflow scale might indicate that some coating materialshook off across the transit of the weighing transfer conveyor, showingthat there was only a 4.8% pick-up of coating material remaining.

Preferably, several such weighing transfer conveyors are used to spacethe various process machines apart.

FIG. 5 is a side view comparable to FIG. 4 except showing an option withflip or agitation sections so this could possibly remove some coatingmaterial and then, when the proper weight pick-up is reached asspecified in the production instruction, the food product conveyance isreturned to a flat transit mode.

Hence the weighing conveyor not only provides weight-flowratemeasurements at both the intake and outflow nose end, the weighingconveyor might be equipped with various provisions to increase ordecrease the pick-up percent.

The following techniques can be employed to adjust the pick-up percent.For dry particulate coatings, techniques which would increase pick-uppercent include:

-   -   add more breading material into the coating machine;    -   add finer breading material into the coating machine;    -   use a compression roller at the outflow;    -   increase the pressure of the compression roller;    -   turn down the flowrate of air knives at the outflow;    -   add moisture to the food product at the inflow;    -   reduce/eliminate shaking/thumping/agitation of the outflow; and        so on.

For dry particulate coatings, techniques which would decrease pick-uppercent include:

-   -   eliminate addition of moisture to the food product at the        inflow;    -   decrease the pressure of the compression roller;    -   increase shaking/thumping/agitation of the outflow to knock-off        excess;    -   increase the blast from the air knifes to blow-off excess; and        so on.

For batter, a further technique for adjusting increase or decrease ofpick-up percent includes thickening or thinning the batter. The batteris readily made thicker by adding more powder. In the other direction,the batter is readily made thinner by adding more water.

FIG. 11 shows an exemplary series of processes and operations that movebatch-stored food product in the vats shown in FIG. 10 onto a loadingzone of a food process line. Ice is preferably scooped/shoveled off thesurface of the slurry in the vats. The meltwater is left behind with thechicken tenders. The vat is poured/emptied likely into a holding tank ofsome sorts at the start. The contents of the holding tank are pumpedinto a marinade tumbler. The meltwater is put to good use to dissolvethe powdered marinade. The outflow of the marinade tank is pumped/pouredonto a landing conveyor of some sort. The conveyor will be of an openconstruction like a chain link belt, or drag link belt and so on. Theexcess water at this point is allowed to flow through the belt and intoan underlying drain. Food product has hence landed onto the initialinflow end of the food process line.

FIG. 12 shows one version of what can functionally transpire in detailXII/XIII-XII/XIII in FIG. 11. A food product loader in accordance withthe prior art is loading food product (which food product is not visiblein the view) onto a landing conveyor also in accordance the prior art.The landing conveyor affords a longitudinal run of conveyor transitwhich allows some implementation of some form of product spreadingtechnology. This can be manual. Typically two to three workers wouldstand on each side of the conveyor and more product apart so that singlepieces are not touching each other. There are other options toaccomplish this which are not manual.

Here in FIG. 12, the landing conveyor discharges to a weighing transferconveyor in accordance with the invention, and the weight-flowratemeasured here is the inflow flowrate of raw chicken tenders. Theflowrate can be adjusted practically immediately at start-up to the maxflowrate of the ‘bottleneck’ of the food process line. This wasmentioned above to be nearly always the maximum throughput flowratethrough the fryer.

FIG. 13 shows an alternate option to FIG. 12. FIG. 13 is a sideelevational view comparable to FIG. 4 and providing an alternatefunctional representation of detail XII/XIII-XII/XIII in FIG. 11.

Here in FIG. 13, the loading of raw food product is poured/pumpeddirectly onto a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance with theinvention. Wherein the weighing transfer conveyor likewise has amid-span which affords implementation of some form of product spreadingtechnology, whether it be manual or otherwise.

For weighing conveyors situated before or after coating apparatus, themid-span can accommodate the mounting of some technology likethumpers/shakers/agitators for knocking off excess, or knives forblowing off excess, or else compression rollers for driving in theparticulate to increase retention, misters to moisten the product and soon.

FIGS. 14 and 15 are schematic side elevation views of a furtherembodiment of a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance with theinvention. FIG. 14 shows it in an expanded position. FIG. 15 shows thisfurther embodiment of a weighing transfer conveyor in accordance withthe invention in a contracted position.

FIG. 16 shows that this further embodiment of a weighing transferconveyor in accordance with the invention, showing that it furtherallows pivoting about a vertical axis in addition to being reversiblyexpanding-contracting.

FIG. 17 is a top plan view, partly in section, taken in the direction ofarrows XVII-XVII in FIG. 16, showing aspect of the pivothardware/turntable.

FIG. 18 is a perspective view comparable to FIG. 16 except showing thetransfer conveyor in accordance with the invention situated between twomachines which do not pivot and showing the transfer conveyor inaccordance with the invention pivoted obliquely away from the main axisof the food process line.

The role for pivoting is not during production run time, but during downtime. The advantages of pivoting enable cleaning and/or maintenanceoperations without breaking apart the food process line as a whole.

The invention having been disclosed in connection with the foregoingvariations and examples, additional variations will now be apparent topersons skilled in the art. The invention is not intended to be limitedto the variations specifically mentioned, and accordingly referenceshould be made to the appended claims rather than the foregoingdiscussion of preferred examples, to assess the scope of the inventionin which exclusive rights are claimed.

What is claimed is:
 1. Flow-rate measurement apparatus for food processlines, comprising: at least one transfer conveyor comprising an endlessconveyor belt having an upper, food-product carrying run and a lower,return run; wherein the upper, food-product carrying run defines atransit plane; the upper, food-product carrying run extends between anintake end and a discharge end; and the upper, food-product carrying runhas a first pleat below the transit plane proximate the intake end and asecond spaced-away pleat below the transit plane proximate the dischargeend; said spaced-away pleats partitioning the upper, food-productcarrying run into an intake-end span and a discharge-end spancooperatively flanking a mid-span; at least one food process linemachine disposed relative the at least one transfer conveyor todischarge food product onto the intake end of the belt of the transferconveyor; at least one other food process line machine disposed relativeto the at least one transfer conveyor to receive food product from thedischarge end of the belt of the transfer conveyor; wherein the at leastone transfer conveyor further comprises one scale servicing theintake-end span and another scale servicing the discharge-end span.